Simple Soul's Light
by Zerozac
Summary: Ruby Rose. Killed in an accident centuries ago, she is now part of the defenders of humanity. Will this new Guardian be able to face the challenges of her new world and beat back the Darkness?


Ruby slowly opens her eyes and looks around. It looks like she's on a burned-out highway. She looks down at her arms and sees that they are covered in beige body armor.

"Guardian?" a synthetic voice says, "Guardian. Eyes up Guardian!"

Ruby looks up and sees a metal ball made of a bunch of pyramids, "What are you? Where am I?"

The ball floats closer to Ruby, "It worked! You're alive! You have no idea how long I've been looking for you. I'm a Ghost. Actually, now I'm your Ghost. And you've been dead a long time. So you're going to see some things you don't understa-."

"I've been dead?" Memories flash through Ruby's mind. Crashing sounds. Flying glass. Pain running up her leg and into her gut.

"I'm sorry." There is a howl in the distance. "This is Fallen territory. I have to get you to Remnant. Hold still."

Ghost sparkles out of existence and Ruby looks around, "Ghost? Where'd you go?"

A HUD appears in front of Ruby's face. An icon of Ghost appears in the corner.

 _"I'm still with you. Move towards that wall. It's not safe in the open."_

Ruby looks over and sees a metal wall growing into the sky. She slowly starts to stumble towards the wall. After a few yards she starts to pick up some speed and runs towards the Wall.

"What happened to this place?"

 _"The Collapse happened. There's not a lot of records surviving from back then."_

"How long ago was it?"

 _"Centuries ago."_

-Centuries? Mom, Dad, Yang, Uncle Qrow. I never got to say goodbye.-

Ruby runs into a small opening in the wall and pants. She looks into the hallway and starts to walk down it.

 _"We need to find you a weapon. I assume you know how to use one."_

"Yeah. I can handle a gun. Military family."

 _"Good. One less thing we have to worry about."_

As Ruby walks farther into the Wall, she hears some scrambling above her. She stops for a moment, holding her breath until the sounds pass. She looks back down at her armor.

"What is this stuff?"

 _"A material transmuted directly from the Traveler's Light. It will stop a few shots, but not much more. We really need to get you to Remnant."_

Ruby walks up a set of stairs and sees something climbing the inside of the wall. Before she can get a good look, it climbs out of sight. -That must have been the Fallen.-

She walks further through and enters an extremely dark room.

 _"Hang tight. Fallen thrive in the dark. We won't. We need more light. I'll see what I can do."_

Ghost materializes and glows as he flies off. There more sounds of things scrambling around the metal. Ruby holds onto a railing and looks down into a chasm.

-Come on Ghost.-

 _"Another one of these hardened military systems and a few centuries of entropy working against me. And… there we go."_

The lights turn on and Ruby sees the bridge she is standing on properly. And on another bridge are strange, armored creatures. -Crap!- Ruby takes off down the bridge and runs into a side room where she sees Ghost hovering around a rifle propped up against a crate.

Ghost returns to Ruby and she picks up the rifle. The amount of ammunition left in the weapon appears on her HUD. She looks at the tracker on the upper left and sees some red. Something runs around a the corner at the far end of the hallway and she points her gun at it.

"What was that?"

As Ruby walks, she makes sure the safety is off. When she rounds the corner, two creatures drop from the ceiling. Ruby raises the rifle and spray fires. The larger creature goes down with a few bullets to the chest while the other takes a shot to the head. When its head is shot, some sort of white mist flies out of it and disappears.

Ruby walks over to the more intact creature and kicks it, "So this is a Fallen?"

The armored body has four arms sticking out of it. She sees a strange, lined symbol on one of its shoulders. She looks at the other and sees that its lower pair of arms have cut cut and covered. -Weird.-

Ruby continues down the hall and turns the corner. One of the smaller Fallen drop from the ceiling and she screams. She smacks it in the face with her gun, knocking it to the ground.

 _"Use your knife!"_

Ruby feels around her body until she finds a knife hilt. She pulls it out. The Fallen jumps at her and she holds the knife out. It slides into the creature's chest and Ruby throws it to the ground.

"Why are these things here?"

 _"They're a group of space pirates. They started attacking Earth shortly after the Collapse."_

"Why?"

 _"It's conjecture that they originally came from a resource-stripped world. But we don't see much mention of a homeworld."_

"So they're just trying to survive…"

 _"Let's keep moving."_

Ruby peeks around the corner and sees a large room. She looks up to her ammo counter and sees that she has more ammo than what is in the magazine.

"How do I have that much ammo?"

 _"I gathered whatever useable ammunition I could find and am storing it in my subspace."_

"Neat."

Ruby pulls out the magazine. It shimmers and is replaced by a second, full one that she returns to the rifle. She slowly walks towards the room and sees Fallen jump out of the ceiling. She looks through the scope and shoots at one, putting a few bullets through it and dropping it.

Suddenly, a bolt of blue energy hits her in the shoulder and she yelps. There isn't any pain and when she looks over she doesn't see any scorch marks.

 _"I'm projecting a Light Aura around you to help shield you. Watch out!"_

Two more bolts hit Ruby and she falls on her back. She rolls out of the doorway and sees a bar on the top of her HUD flashing red.

 _"I've patched measurements of your Aura reserves into your armor."_

As the bar starts to rise, Ruby sticks her head and her gun into the doorway. She shoots one of the Fallen in the head, but the other one is hiding behind a crate in the center of the room. Ruby puts her gun to her back with a satisfying click. She pulls out her knife and runs at the crate. She leaps and vaults over the crate, plunging the blade into the Fallen's head on her way down.

The tracker flashes red to the side of Ruby. She pulls out her rifle and fires half a magazine into the larger Fallen.

Ruby pants and grabs her knife, "I feel amazing. So strong."

 _"That's the power of Light. Now come on. It shouldn't be much further. But watch out; I sense more up ahead."_

Ruby reloads her rifle and walks down yet another rusted catwalk. It creaks under her but doesn't break. At the end of the bridge is a small chest.

 _"A loot cache. Let's see what's inside."_

Ruby opens the chest and finds a sniper rifle and some light blue cubes. She picks up one of the cubes and holds it to her face.

"Is this glimmer?"

 _"In Remnant we use it as currency. I understand that it was used as a power source in the Golden Age."_

"Yeah."

The glimmer disappears in the same manner as Ghost. Ruby puts the sniper rifle on her back and continues down some stairs. She turns the corner and sees red lines crossing the path.

 _"Trip mines. Don't touch."_

"Oh really."

Ruby picks up a chunk of rubble and throws it into the path of the mines. They explode and she continues on. More mines activate the Fallen drop from the ceilings. She shoots a few and kicks one back into the mines, blowing it apart.

She keeps walking through, until she reaches another large room. Larger Fallen crawl down pillars and smaller ones crawl out of a hole in the wall. She looks through the scope of her gun and shoots at one of the small ones. She ducks behind a pile of strange crates as two bolts fly past her head. She points the gun around the other side of the crates and fires two bursts. She hears one of the Fallen screech and thump the ground.

She watches the red move around the tracker. She pulls out her knife and pushes herself up against the crate. As soon as a Fallen steps in front of her, she grabs its shoulder and plunges the knife into its chest. She steps out from behind the crate and fires at the remaining Fallen until they all drop.

"How many more are there?"

 _"I'm not sure. The Fallen have a tighter hold on this place than I thought. Just a bit further, though. Let's just hope there's something left out there."_

Ruby nods and reloads her rifle. She walks down a tunnel and past a pair of rusted fans. She steps out of the Wall and looks over a moonlit junkyard.

 _"The old Cosmodrome. There's got to be something we can fly out of here."_

Ruby starts to walk out further and a silver ball explodes. A strange ship flies out.

"Any chance that's our reinforcements?"

 _"Sorry."_

Ruby sneaks in the shadow of a building in the middle of the junkyard and looks at the Fallen walking around. She swaps the automatic rifle with the sniper rifle and gets down on her belly. She looks at the largest Fallen in the group and looks through the scope. Line up with its chest. Aim a little high. And fire!

The Fallen flies back and the rest look up at her. Ruby quickly aims and blows the head off a second Fallen. She switches back to her automatic and guns down the last two. A something hits her in the head and she tumbles off the ledge she's on. She shakes her head and peeks around, where there are two more Fallen shooting at her. Ruby pulls out the sniper rifle and fires through them.

Ruby runs to a hill, dodging a couple more bolts. She gets down behind the hill and reloads her sniper rifle.

"Do I have any grenades?"

 _"You need to focus the Light inside of you."_

Ruby closes her eyes and feels a warmth inside her chest. She opens her eyes and holds out her hand. A ball of golden fire appears in her hand. She turns and throws the grenade as far as she can. It explodes and she hears screeching and exploding.

 _"I'm picking up signs of an old jumpship in there."_

Ruby fights her way through the old hangar. Eventually, she sees a room with a ship sitting inside. And on top is an even larger Fallen surrounded by an electric blue aura.

"Well, crap."

 _"That's a captain."_

The captain seems to blink in and out of existence. It appears on the ground and fires at Ruby. The triple shot hits Ruby square in the chest and knocks down most of her Aura. She grunts and throws a grenade. A small Fallen explodes, but the captain doesn't take any damage.

Ruby dodges a second shot and starts firing her rifle into the captain. She runs around the room, hiding behind pillars and crates until she can get some shots in at various Fallen. Finally, the blue aura bursts.

 _"Its shield is down!"_

Ruby pulls out her sniper rifle and runs at the captain. She slides under its gunfire and points her barrel under its chin. She pulls the trigger and the captain's head explodes, releasing that strange, white gas.

Ruby climbs to her feet and pants. Ghost appears and starts to scan the ship.

 _"It's been here awhile. Probably hasn't made a jump in centuries. We're lucky the Fallen haven't picked it clean."_

"Will it fly?"

 _"Well, it's probably not airtight and won't break orbit, but we'll make it to the city."_

Ghost flies towards the ship and disappears. The ship powers on and starts to hover.

 _"Now about transmat systems."_

Fallen start to run into the room. And Ruby raises her automatic.

 _"Bringing you in!"_

Ruby disappears and the ship takes off. On a roof in the Divide, an armored figure with a sword on their back looks at the flying jumpship. The figure shimmers and transmats away.

The jumpship flies through a dense storm. Ruby holds her helmet in her hands and looks down at the visor. Ghost floats beside her, flying the ship.

"What is Remnant?"

 _"Remnant is the last city of mankind. Centuries ago, humanity was in a great Golden Age, brought about by the Traveler. Then came the Darkness. We aren't sure what it was. All we know is that it destroyed our colonies among the stars. As it approached Earth, the Traveler battled it directly. The Traveler sent the Darkness away, but at the cost of most of its power. Now is floats above Remnant, protecting the last bastion of humanity. In its last breath, it released the Ghosts to find Guardians to protect them."_

The storm breaks and Ruby looks out the viewport. Above the center of the city there is an enormous orb. Parts of it seem to be clawed off.

"The Traveler." Ruby whispers. "I've never seen it in person before."

Two ships fly up to meet Ruby's. A voice comes over the comms.

[Arcadia-class ship, this is City Security. Identify yourself or leave Remnant airspace.]

 _"This is the Ghost of newly revived Guardian Ruby Rose. Requesting permission to dock at the Tower. Transmitting ID codes now."_

The ships break off and Ruby's ship flies towards a large tower about a mile from the Traveler. The ship flies into a hangar and Ruby transmats onto a walkway.

 _"Let's find you the shipwright."_

"How in the world do you do this much damage to a brand new Kestrel?" a voice yells.

 _"And there she is."_

"Come on," a familiar voice says, "it was the Grimm."

Ruby looks over and sees a woman with long, almost golden hair talking to a mechanic. The woman looks up and her eyes widen.

"Yang," Ruby whispers.


End file.
